Finding a home for every child who needs one

Home for Good is working with Diagrama Foundation and the Diocese of Rochester to find more foster carers and adoptive parents from the Church community for vulnerable children coming into care in and around Kent, Medway, Bexley and Bromley.

Last year DfE recorded a drop of a third in foster carer applications and the number of children awaiting adoption outstrips the number of approved adopters. The need is urgent. We believe that the church community across Kent can make a significant difference.

We're searching for compassionate, flexible and committed people to step forward to care for children who are hard to place. It will be challenging, but one of the most rewarding things you can do.

The need is urgent. Could you offer the caring home a vulnerable child needs?

In partnership with:

The Need

Thousands of children are fostered every year and 120 are waiting for adoptive homes across the Diocese. More foster carers and adopters are needed so that children can be placed in families willing and able to care for them.

Your Skills

If you are a good listener, caring, patient, understanding and have a spare room in your home you could be a home for good. Together with Diagrama, we will give you the support and training you need along the way.

Supporting You

Diagrama offer their foster carers support and training opportunities alongside a generous financial package to enable you to do this critical task. You will become a crucial part of a team of professionals caring for children.

What is fostering?

Fostering is an opportunity to give vulnerable children and young people a safe place in a stable and loving home while their birth family is unable to look after them. Some may need a home for a few nights and others for a few years. All will need care, compassion and support.

Each year in the UK, tens of thousands of children come into care, usually from difficult or desperate circumstances. Children may have suffered a lack of care or stability, abuse or trauma, or their family may be experiencing crisis. Many of these children will be placed in foster care.

Foster carers are needed for children of all ages, but there is a particular need for carers who are able to look after groups of siblings, children with disabilities or additional needs, teenagers and asylum seeking children.

Who needs fostering?

Children of all ages and from a wide variety of backgrounds need fostering. They need safe, caring and loving homes whilst the best solution is worked out for their future.

Carers are especially needed for the following groups:

1. Children over the age of ten
2. Siblings groups, so that they need not be separated from each other on entering care
3. Children with additional needs, who need ongoing and targetted support through their childhood. Often this can be respite care for parents to give them a break
4. Unaccompanied asylum seeking children who are an increasing proportion of looked after children in the UK
5. Children and teenagers who are placed in residential homes, but would flourish better in a family setting

40% of children who come into care return to their birth family within six months. The role of foster carers during these six months is crucial to ensuring that the child receives the support and stability he or she needs during a challenging period. For those who are unable to return to their birth family, long term permanency through a foster placement, kinship care or adoption may be in their best interests, and they will need the care and love of people around them who are committd to seeing them flourish.

What is Adoption

Adoption is a way of providing permanent families for children who are unable to live with their birth families. To adopt means taking a child permanently into your home and bringing them up as your own. The child will legally become part of your family.

Children who can no longer live with their birth families because of loss, neglect or abuse, need the love and support of a parent who will help them come to terms with their earlier life experiences

Who needs adopting?

Over 120 children are waiting for adoptive parents in the areas covered by the Diocese; boys and girls, brothers and sisters. Most are aged between two and 10 years old and many are part of a family group of two or more children who need to be placed together.

Around three quarters of children waiting for adoption are 'hard to place', which means they are likely over the age of 3, part of a sibling group, from a Black or Minotiry Ethnic Background or have additional needs. More than 15 of these children have been waiting for a family for over 18 months.

Upcoming events

We are holding information events across Bexley, Bromley, Medway and Kent throughout 2017/18. Our next event/s are listed here:

Please let us know if you are coming via the form below! Refreshments will be provided.

POSTPONED - Rochester Cathedral Fostering and Adoption Celebration

POSTPONED - This event was postponed due to heavy snowfall. We are working on a new date and will post an update as soon as possible.

We are holding a special service in Rochester Cathedral to celebrate the amazing work of foster carers and adopters, and their contribution to society and the young people they serve and care for. It will be hosted by The Right Reverend James Langstaff, Bishop of Rochester.

Saturday 3 March 2018, 11.30 am

We will hear from Bishop James and Krish Kandiah, founder and director of Home for Good. You can book your free ticket here...

Buy Tickets on Eventbrite

To explore whether fostering or adoption is for you, call us on 0300 001 0995 or send us a message in the form below.

Opening your home as a foster carer or adopter and welcoming vulnerable children into your family is a big decision and will come with many challenges, but hopefully there will also be much joy.

If you would like to have a conversation to explore whether fostering or adoption could be right for you, we would love to talk to you!

Call us or send us a message in the form below and a member of the Home for Good team will be in touch within 48 hours.

Any specific questions you have

Please note that by submitting this form we will only contact you regarding your interest in fostering / adoption. If you would like to be added to the Home for Good
mailing list, to receive regular updates about our work, please tick this box.

I agree to Home for Good's privacy policy with regards to the use of the data I have provided *

What do others say?

"We long for people everywhere to consider how to support children who need families. Some of us may become foster carers or adopters, and some may support foster and adoptive families, but we can all care for others and offer our homes as a hospital to those who need it."

Debbie and Jason

“Being a foster carer has been challenging, emotionally and physically exhausting at times! But it is so, so worth it.”

Christine

"Possibly the most rewarding part for us is that when they leave, we know we have done a good job and given them a strong foundation in their lives.”